Category: STEM Land

Roof:

The Roof was built with slabs that were attached together with bindings, and sealed off with some material that had become torn and corroded. Thus making rain water seep in. The solution was covering the cracks with tar sheets. Naveen had got the excess sheets from the repair works at Aura Auro Design’s Lab. He also got a Flame thrower that was antique 😉 (We along with the children had a time figuring out how to light it up) It was a manual tool we had to compress air and it would send out a mixture of kerosene and air that would burn. eventually 🙂 . The children started to measure and cut out the tar sheets from a roll. Naveen  and the children placed the sheets and heated them to stick on the roof with the flame thrower.

We hope this will prevent rain water from seeping in. The roof was then painted with a bright yellow oil paint. We bought 6 liters of oil paint. Children started painting during their sleepover. It took two evenings to paint 2 coat of painting on the roof.

Painting Inside:

               

Inside:

The room was now ready to be inaugurated on Sri Aurobindo’s birthday. We had as our chief guest, Swami Sarvasahananda from Ramakrishna Mission, Chengalpattu. He graced our space with his blessings, talk and music. That morning the school was abuzz with activity. Children had stayed over the previous night to participate in the dawnfire meditation. When we came from there, we were working on decorating the clay room. Garlands were made, photos of Sri Aurobindo, Mother, Sri Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda were decorated. Lamps were kept ready for the opening. Children with help from their teachers got the PA system ready. The harmonium and tabla were arranged. Gopal from Mantra pottery joined us that morning to do clay work. It was a session that children and adults enjoyed. The Swamiji lit the lamp and invited the teachers to do the same. Once the lamps were lit, we all connected with the Divine Mother through songs that the Swamiji and children sang. For those who could remember how forlorn the room had been, it was touching to see how the same little room was shining with all of us invoking the Divine.

As one of the facilitators in creating our clay room, I witnessed the transformation of a space we had neglected over the years into a bright space that we look at every day. That we can transform our environment with one-pointed concentration, team-work, openness to learn, consecration of our work to the Divine are learnings that will stay with us and reveal themselves to us as and when we are ready to understand them.

When I was working with the children in the clay room I learnt to be patient. Involved all the children and gave equal opportunities to all the children. Learnt team work from the children. I saw sharing and caring from the children while working as a team for my self and for others.

Painting Outside:

Third graders took responsibility to paint outside. This being a room for clay and woodwork, we wanted to paint it with a natural brownish red-soil color. We inquired with a few painters and once they understood our idea, they all suggested extracting the color from red-soil and binding it with Fevicol. Children in 5,6 and 7 stay over in school on Wednesdays. One Thursday morning, we went with pands and mumpties and collected red soil.

Once the soil was on hand, the third graders sieved it. Water was added to the soil and mixed well. This had to be filtered to extract the color. For the filter, we used some of the cloth bags we receive in grocery stores that don’t use plastic any more. We tool 4 liters of the red-soil water and mixed it with 2 liter of Fevicol. Fevicol made the paint thick. We painted the wall and as it dried up, the wall looked beautiful with hues of orange, red and yellow. We wanted a darker shade since we planned to paint patterns on the wall inspired by Warli art. So for the next coat, we added some brown water color that was on hand. A lovely dark shade was the result. The room is hexagonal giving us six panels to paint on. Over a few evenings after school, teachers and students painted patterns on the wall. We have a panel with a tree and a deer on a full moon night. One more with the Matrimandir, Banyan tree and children visiting there. Some of the paintings did not come well and we painted over them to create a fresh new wall to paint over.

We had a visitor named Ravi Alugnati a very respected resource person in Math and Science languages and also does puppetry hands on activities. He showed us some of the things he had built in Kirigami We made different shapes both in Kirigami(cutting paper) and Origami(olding paper) with his guidance. The 8th and 9^th graders of Udavi and some children in Isai Ambalam also enjoyed making different shapes. I found Origami little bit tougher than Kirigami as the steps to build a shape/object is more complex. I also got a feedback from him about my teaching when I was taking class for the 3rd graders in Isai Ambalam. The feedback was useful.

We started of by creating a ball that included folding of paper and interlinking different pieces. Shiva(teacher at isaiambalam school) and Pranav (Volunteer at STEMland) had jointed the workshop. During these sessions everyone was very focused, and figuring out how to link the different pieces together to form the object.

Ravi had also brought with him 3D shapes that personally dazzled me there where cubes that could be rotated and would again reform the cube.